Calvin – Australia – Sydney
It had started the same as every other day. Calvin’s phone began to vibrate and then its alarm blared indignantly at the god forsaken hour of 1 am. His eyes were grudgingly pried open, only to then be assaulted by the streetlight glaring through the venetians.
The battle with the tangled covers ensued with the eventual victor announced with a tumbling cacophony of swearing as he landed against, first the floor, then back first into the adjoining wall, with a final victorious yet deceptively disgruntled cry of “fuck!”, when his head finally joined his back with connected to said wall.
Groaning and fumbling for the light switch, he slowly got up and trudged to the bathroom for his ablutions before work. Having made himself sufficiently presentable, coffee demanded he finally arouse his brain up.
In his one bedroom apartment’s kitchenette he proceeded to burn some toast and slather it with an unhealthy amount of jam, the coffee and toast began to slowly exhume him in the brief 10 minutes he allowed himself for breakfast in his daily routine.
Leaving the apartment he navigated the almost deserted Wednesday morning streets to the train station, not 5 minute’s walk away. Living at the central-ish suburb of Burwood in Sydney, made the several train stop trip near effortless, to Liverpool for his job.
He watched in a semi haze as the lights of the city flashed past whilst listening to indie rock through earphone connected to his almost obsolete smart phone.
He had been at this job for almost 3 years now and no matter how many mornings he’d conquered, it never seemed to get any easier.
Having gotten straight out of high school, and having no real talents or passions, through a friend of his parents, he was practically given a job at the remote monitoring section of the Securitec. As a child of Chinese immigrants unemployment was a fate worse than death, so rather than bring shame to his entire family line, he just sucked it up and took the only shift offered.
The graveyard shift.
Exiting Liverpool’s train station, he resisted the urge to splurge on Wc Bonald’s and carried on walking till he was two blocks from the station and at the semi high rise that was Securitec’s offices. Passing through the deserted lobby, he made his customary half arsed wave and smile at the solitary security guard at reception desk, which was returned in the same routinely casual fashion It was given.
Tapping his pass card on the lifts swipe terminal granted him access to the 3rd floor which was his tomb come work area, replete with computer screens, an assortment of furniture, stationary and a lone Terry. The Terry in question was your stereotypical embodiment of a geek. Average build, height, brown short hair, sunken eyes and a cataclysmic case of acne.
Upon arrival he greeted his ghoulish work colleague with a perfunctory “heya”.
His colleague, already having been alerted to Calvin’s impending entrance by the ding of the lift, responded with a disinterested “tag your it”, as he began wheeling back his chair from the monitor station.
Changing places with Terry after he finished logging out, his pimply co-worker collected his things and stretched and yawned out a barely intelligible “seya morrow” before entering the lift. Calvin heard its familiar quiet *thunk* as it closed it’s doors whisking Terry bellow and leaving him alone with the screens, his thoughts and a fresh cup of the sweet and blessed giver of life. Coffee.
Settling in for the 2am - 1pm shift, he began thinking of the present he was going to buy Judy, his girlfriend, for her birthday. They had been a thing for slightly longer than his job and she was sadly the only thing he was proud of in his life right now.
It wasn’t that they were obsessed with each other as such, it was more that they liked each other’s company and he liked the world a little better when he was with her. Reluctantly putting more adult presents on the backburner, he began to tabulate a list of more practical and endearing gifts that could potentially earn her continued joy and happiness, thus improving her coming birthday sleep over.
As time passed due to his musings and infrequent checks on the security feed of Securitec’s contracted monitoring sites, he managed to finalize his gift choice of a hand sewn personalized teddybear, with Judy’s name in fancy calligraphy. Pairing the bear with concert tickets to sailor mift’s closest concert date, Judy’s favorite pop artist, he congratulated himself on his peerless brilliance as he began to drift off.
What awoke Calvin was not the phone call from an aggrieved supervisor he subconsciously expected, due to him having failed to report one of the companies monitoring sites being broken into.
No. What woke him was a blinding flash of blue white light. Attempting to overcome the sudden shock of being blinded, he shielded his eyes with one hand and rubbed his eyes with the other, a voice brought him out of his reflexive shock:
“Greetings ‘Human’ 04,809,203,941. You have been transferred to a personal elevation reeducation session for practical assessment and aptitude testing, please prepare yourself.”
Not being the best morning person Calvin rallied rather spectacularly in light of this unexpected deviation from the non-existent scalding of his supervisor “…..um…wha..?”
Anapu – Canada – Alberta – Edmonton
It was snowing like it always did in winter, not that Anapu minded it. It gave her the perfect excuse to not come out of her heavy jacket for most of the day. She was going to work with her uncle today at his crime scene and hazardous materials cleaning business, so being in waterproof jacket and dungarees was actually pretty sweet. Seeing as she would only have to effectively deep clean one set of clothes from the smell of a decomposing body.
Looking forward to seeing her uncle Tinuk pulling up out front in the work van, she was already dressed and sipping her coffee. Looking out the frost encrusted window, she was glad her work started at midday and not the morning, as much as she enjoyed the cold she was not apparently a polar bear like her uncle, as frequently evidenced by the fact that he’d freely choose to wear a shirt in 5 degrees below zero, the damn loon!
Further musing on the afternoon to come she hoped the call out would be a murder and not an elderly person. The last fogey who had croaked hadn’t been found for a week, and the worst part of it all? He had a pet and well pets had to eat…. So as much as her stomach churned at the prospect of a grizzly murder scene she would take it over the mangled rotting corpse of a deceased owner and their beloved bloodstained and rancid furred Fluffykin’s any day of the century.
Sadly, she had long since given up the lofty dream of an industrial oil spill or asbestos cleanup several months ago. She guessed she should be thankful though as half of her school friends she grew up with were jobless or worse single parents by this stage.
Despite being of Native American decent and employed, she just could not find it in herself to be grateful for her current life. A honking horn broke her from her existential malaise and she looked up from the kitchen sink she had been absentmindedly studying to see her uncles work van waiting out front.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Grabbing the self-packed dinner and trotting toward the front door, she donned her snow boots and locked up, before shuffling down the icy steps and subsequent path of her two bedroom shack to meet her uncle who just so happened to double as her boss.
Opening the van door caused the warm air from the vehicles heating and hospital-esque smell of industrial cleaning products, to escape into the surrounding atmosphere in a puff of steam. Unperterbed by the obvious loss of heat, her uncle greeted her in his deep and raspy, yet heavily accented voice “Greetings she who scrubs all floors”.
She cracked a rueful grin at his tongue in cheek greeting and retorted in a pale imitation of his bass tone “Well met, he who sits in van whilst the scrubber of floors does all work”. Which wasn’t true…mostly, but what was family for if not for breaking balls?
“Hey now little one, someone has to keep the seat warm” he replied with a chuckle whilst putting the van in drive.
And so she settled into the comfortable silence of their morning commute, flicking the radio stations for a bit to find a passable country music station that he would not immediately switch off, which was something she’d had to learn the hard way over the past months.
Relaxing back into her seat Anapu idly looked out the condensation heavy passenger window at the passing scenery of snowcapped suburbia, marveling at the white scenery scrolling past.
After several minutes they passed an old lady trudging along the snow encrusted sidewalk leading a young child with huffs of misty breath escaping every few paces till they came to a halt at the stoplight Tinuk and Anapu were waiting at.
The old lady was sporting a non-descript orange jacket and the child and orange one, suddenly recognizing the pair, Anapu almost wound down the window to greet them but just as she was about to, she remembered that they were no longer on speaking terms. Her Uncle also happened to recognize the pair and probed “Isn’t that old lady Kiema and Chauntee’s little-un?”
She tried to burrow down in her seat to assuage her discomfort whilst deflecting “Yeah I think your right…and who are you calling old aye?”
Obviously not picking up on her body language he continued “Anyone who happens to be older than me.”, He proudly pronounced with a smile in his throaty timbre and prodded “You should say hello aye?”
She tried to sink further into her seat as she murmured “They look busy tho…”
They in no way looked indisposed waiting at the lights, but she would rather chase a salmon across thin ice than confide in her uncle. What went on with Connor, who just happened to be Kiema’s grandson and Chauntee’s current partner was none of his business. As close a relative as he may be there was no way in heck she would give him further ammunition for roll out at family gatherings or worse at work where there was no escape…like right now.
“Sure they do..” He said in a disbelieving tone eyeing her sideways, thankfully the light turned green and he was forced to accelerate away, causing another silent stretch of snow clad suburbia to pass. Attempting to lift the uncomfortable silence that had settled in the van she decided to ask a safe question “So what’s the job this time old man?”
“Just a simple lift and scrub, or so the dispatch officer said” He replied easily.
She groaned internally whilst attempting to keep the displeasure form her face. Lift and scrub was code for body being discovered long after it’s used by and having to take away the material it had been resting on for far too long with them. The best she could hope for was that there was no pets.
“What a wonderful time to be alive” Was what left her mouth before she even realized she had said it.
Frowning in mild annoyance he shot back, “Hey now, do I have to complain to my brother again about my ungrateful niece?”
Well shoot, she had managed to step in it this time. There wasn’t much that got her uncle hot under the collar, for the most part he was the epitome of a jolly old coot. However if she ever got to complaining about work, the rest of the day would be him schooling her on how grateful she should be for having a damned job.
In retrospect, maybe her comeback earlier about him sitting in the van had already set up the foundation for the impending lecture but common! Who in their right mind likes cleaning up over ripe bodily fluids?
“Now uncle whatever happened to free speech?” She would dig herself out this time!
Shaking his head at her naiveté he replied, “You lost the right to complain when you entered the van, you know the rules aye.”
Dammit he pulled this card every god’s damn time! Making an attempt at a diplomatic resolution she began, “This is so unf-“
Suddenly a tingling sensation accompanied by an all-encompassing blinding flash of blue-ish white light replaced not just the background aroma of the chemically acrid van but her whole sphere of perception. Blinking her eyes rapidly to attempt to orientate herself in this completely white void a monotonic voice forestalled her efforts:
“Greetings ‘Human’ 03,471,692,937. You have been transferred to a personal elevation reeducation session for practical assessment and aptitude testing, please prepare yourself.”
Carrying over her frustration from the previous conversation with her uncle and his attempted censorship she replied anger, “What the hell is this ya ho-!”
Un-Bep’ee - Botswana – Tribal village 114km north-west of Gaborone
Today was a big day for Un-Bep’ee. He had worked towards it for most of his youth. Being the smartest member of his village he was given access to educational materials, not readily available to all. Thus, he had expended no trivial amount of effort and time learning from the available information to become a doctor.
There was however a slight problem with his near perfect dedication to his life’s calling up until this point.
He was late.
As he quickly washed and dressed himself in the best clothes he owned, he did a slow moving one legged alternating hiphop as he attached runners to his feet. Extracting himself from his families two room home, he bid his grandparents a hasty farewell “Farewell! I promise to write you every week!”
Smiling as they waved him off whilst replying in tandem, ”We will miss you greatly grandson” “Don’t forget where you come from Bep’ee!” before ruefully shaking their heads at their overexcited, but out of time grandson.
Tearing down the main (and only) street of his tribes village, dodging through the milling goats, he began the 5km run to the nearest bus stop. Exiting the village and it’s surrounding trees, he barely noticed them slowly give way, until he was immersed in the breathtaking vista of shrubby savannah.
He loved his home and admittedly it was the only one he had ever known. But that didn’t change the fact that he loved where he grew up and more importantly the people whom he grew up with.
Not being sure if he was going to make the only bus at 11:00am to Gaborone, he put his metaphorical and literal foot down as he fell into a hard earned runner’s rhythm. Once in the practiced gait, he set his mind to overcoming the next arguably self-induced time sensitive hurdle to becoming a doctor.
Savannah passing by at a respectable pace and all his earthly belongings in a small knapsack on his back, his mind began to wander as he thought of the day he would achieve his doctorate and finally return to his village.
He always wanted to become a healer for his village but given the difficulty of tertiary education in rural Botswana, it had always seemed so far out of reach. Yet with the help of his grandparents he affectionately labeled ‘uma’ and ‘bopa’, he had somehow managed to meet the lofty entry requirements for university.
So naturally harboring thoughts of spending the rest of his early life repaying their kindness with the knowledge he earned with their assistance, seemed the only logical choice for young Un-Bep’ee.
Only having passed a lone cow on the sum total of his run along the dirt road that connected his village to one of the few Botswanan highways, he had made great time on his dusty journey. Rounding a final corner of obscuring shrubbery that hid said highway, the adjoining bus stop, which was nothing more than a glorified dusty three sided tin shed in the middle of nowhere, looked to him something akin to an oasis in the middle of a desert, than the rusty construction it actually was.
Noticing that the bus he intended to catch was just arriving, he inwardly thanked his ancestors for not punishing him for his earlier slothfulness. Signaling the driver with an over exuberant wave so as not to leave any doubt that his sweaty, dusted and disheveled self was a prospective passenger. The driver thankfully noted his wild gesticulation enabling him to board the bus and offer a happily huffing “One…ticket…for…Gaborone…please…good…sir”.
Exchanging some frugally saved money for his ticket, Un-Bep’ee trudged toward the only vacant window seat, grinning wearily at his fellow passengers and receiving some mildly dubious looks in return. He felt like he was finally committed, with this first step of the journey almost complete, he settled into his seat for the two hour journey.
His mind once again wondering, it was about a hour into the trip when he experienced a blinding flash of blue-ish white light, his first thought was ‘oh my gods, is this one of those embolisms I have read about?!... . . . it seems my ancestor’s will not forgive my earlier laziness so easily”. This train of thought however was quickly arrested when he next heard:
“Greetings ‘Human’ 03,609,225,962. You have been transferred to a personal elevation reeducation session for practical assessment and aptitude testing, please prepare yourself.”